TBAY: Satanic Verses and no-charm Neville

[dfrankiswork at netscape.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 39019

David walks up from Theory Bay towards the Canon Museum.  The door is open but the building seems deserted.  There is a peeling poster by the door advertising a Symposium, now past, about Memory Charmed Neville, in the main Lecture Theatre.

David wanders in.  The mess!  Surely these symposia are meant to be quiet, staid affairs?  Look at the state of it!  Kool-Aid beakers and curling dried up sandwiches everywhere.  Not so much Canon Museum as Shrieking Shack.  He gives a pile of old used yellow flags a kick and is surprised when something skitters away across the floor.  He picks it up and examines it.  It looks like a canon, but it feels like a plastic model.

He looks closer, frowning.  Surely the symposium was about Neville?  How did this get here?  Then he chuckles.  This is what is written on it:

> 3. The reference to Moaning Myrtle having a crush on Harry, also in FB

Something seems wrong with the manufacture - it looks like cheap WB tat; you can get it anywhere these days.  Then he realises.  It's back to front!  He walks over to the mirror and holds it up.  The writing now says:

Harry Potter loves Moaning Myrtle.

David chuckles again.  If someone had actually *fired* this canon, they would have blown a hole right through their own ship.  Someone must have waved it around at the symposium, threatening all the attendees, claiming that they knew where they could get good canons.  And they had all swallowed it.  None of them had actually *checked*.  Who could have got away with such a blatant bluff?  Who would profit from the dissemination of this stuff?

He is about to throw the canon in the bin when he pauses, a look that is pure Malfoy crossing his pale blond features.  There are some ships out in the Bay that could *use* a canon like this.  He looks at it again, and then again, puzzled.  There is something else wrong with it.  Something more subtle.  This would require checking with the original.

David wanders out of the theatre, wondering, and goes down the corridor.  A couple of inconspicuous doors are there, side by side.  He pauses briefly at the green one, thinking he should get the canon there for Cindy.  But no, there is a Thief's Curse.  She will have to get her own.  And there is pressing business to attend to anyway.

He opens the red door and walks into a dusty schoolroom.  A single line of footprints leads to the Jabberknoll cage, which has been forced open and is empty.  That will have to wait though.  He walks over to a case near the door and gently lifts the lid.  A cloud of dust rises from it: nobody has looked at this one in a long time.  Delicately, he lifts out the canon there:

Harry Potter loves Moaning Myrtle.

The same words, but there is the difference.  The words 'Moaning Myrtle' have been crossed out.

*That* changes everything.  There are *possibilities* here.  Who wrote these words?  More importantly, who crossed them out?  How could a canon be *crossed out*?  This is amazing.

The Canon Museum has its very own Satanic Verses.

David looks round nervously.  A slight earth tremor shakes the Museum.  This is worse than the time Dicentra put her arm clean through the wall into the Outer Void in her argument with Judy and Marina (1).  Quickly he whips out his Reed-Rite Rubber (2), ignoring the yellow flag that blows in through the doorway.  It tells him: "The handwriting is Ron's".  Ron, eh?  David muses on possible parallels between Ron and Satan, or is it the satan?  Somehow, Ron in a barrister's wig is as unconvincing as Ron in a red outfit with horns and a tail.  Hm.  He applies the Rubber again.  Who crossed it out?  No answer.

Logically, it had to be Harry himself who crossed them out, but whoever it was has *only* deleted the words 'Moaning Myrtle'.  So Harry Potter loves *somebody*, eh?  Who? Cho Chang?  When was this written anyway?

David notes that there are other words on the canon.  The Reed-Right Quill tells him they are by Hermione.  So *she* had access, too.  Could *she* have crossed out the offending words?  But then, why would she leave the "Harry Potter loves" bit?  What interest could she have in that?  What name might she want to substitute for Myrtle's, if she dared?  Puzzling, very puzzling.

Just then, David's musings are interrupted by a noise upstairs.  Somebody is in the building after all.  Hastily closing the case he turns and leaves the room and follows the sound to its source.

In a corner of the Common Room, he sees Faith (3) riffling through a huge pile of papers, angrily muttering to herself.

"What's the matter?" he asks.

"Look at this!" she says, "Three huge volumes of Symposium Proceedings.  Bigger than many canons.  And I get *one* mention.  And did I even get a word in edgeways?  No!  They tell me what I think, but they don't think to *ask*."

David circles behind her and reads from Volume 1 of the Proceedings:

>It's kind of boring. It doesn't offer nearly as much in the way of thematic complexity. It definitely lacks Bang. But there's just no getting around the fact that it certainly is *plausible.*

>And I have this funny feeling that Faith herself probably favors this reading. 

>Its big drawback, though, is that it fails to account for all of the foreshadowing and emphasis that both memory charms and memory suppression have been given over the course of the past four volumes. 

David sees what Faith means.  But what is this boring thing that lacks Bang?  He flips back a few pages:

> There is no memory charm, nor any other type of memory suppression. Neville's memory is just fine, really. If it seems at times to be faulty, then that is merely because the poor lad is so preoccupied with dealing with the trauma of his past that it distracts him from concentrating on other matters, like his day-to-day affairs and his schoolwork.

A flourish of the Reed-Rite Rubber reveals that all this was written by Elkins.

"So, do you disagree with this theory, then, Faith?" he asks.

"Weeeell, no... not as such... I do think there isn't a memory charm on Neville.  I don't exactly agree that the trauma of the past is distracting him, though.  Put yourself in Neville's position.  He knows he can sometimes do powerful magic.  He knows that his dad was an auror and he probably reckons - may even have been told - that his dad could do powerful magic.  He knows where it got his dad.  Worse, he knows that his mum, magically speaking not necessarily unusual, also suffered the same fate.  He sees it every holiday.  He has got through his childhood avoiding all magic as much as possible.  He knows in his heart of hearts that he's not a Squib but he's darned if he's going to let his family know.  Now he's been sent to Hogwarts, where he will - guess what - learn to do magic.  Powerful OWL and NEWT gaining magic.  Defence Against the Dark Arts.  He is to drink of the potion that has wrecked his and his family's life.  So what does he do?  In effect, he sulks.  He 'forgets' things.  he keeps a low profile.  He is a nice lad so he is always obliging and friendly.  He sticks up for his principles when he must.  But - magical power?  That's scary.  Give it to the vultures.

"The funny thing is, Elkins pretty much said the same thing herself not long ago.  Prince Renunciate or something, she called it, but that's what it was about.  So, I reckon that his memory's fine, but he doesn't have any particularly traumatic memories of torture - he probably wasn't there - he is just avoiding magic where he can.  I grant you, it need not be conscious: he's not acting - it's just his aversion to all that magical heritage that pushes his conscious mind away from things he ought to remember all the time - passwords, timetables, potion recipes, missing steps and so on."

Faith pauses and David takes the opportunity to ask, rather nervously: "But what about all that foreshadowing?  Memory charms right, left, and centre.  Dazed Lockhart, tortured Bertha, that guy at the World Cup, trained Obliviators.  Isn't it a bit naive to ignore all that evidence?"

In a controlled, low voice she replies:  "Look at me.  I'm Faith.  I'm *supposed* to be naive.  It took *years* of hard work to become this naive.  I stand for straightforward common-sense interpretation of the text as it stands.  So what if Lockhart used Memory Charms.  That was what he did.  It doesn't mean a thing one way or the other for Neville."  She gives David a withering look, and goes on in a rising voice: "Surely you're not proposing that Neville defeated some Ruritanian vampire as a toddler and Lockhart stole his story and charmed him! ("No, no, of course not!")  The link between Memory Charms and Neville is purely in the minds of all those sailors out there.  Have they got a single canon to support it?  It's not even circumstantial evidence.  You'll be telling me next that Lockhart and Jorkins are mere fictional constructs, manipulated by a mythical author figure to put Memory Charms in our minds when we are told Neville is forgetful!  What sort of speculation is that?"

As she calms down, David glances nervously at the door, swallows, and says, almost in a whisper:  "But what about the Bang?  What about the thematic complexity?"

"Not my problem.  If they want Bang and angstiness and convoluted themes, that's up to them.  But Prince Renunciate sounds pretty thematic to me, anyway."

She shifts closer to David.  He edges away and she follows, saying quietly: "But think about it.  Who *wants* Bang anyway?  Sure, it's a great thrill at the beginning, the first time you try out your new canon.  But for a life partnership?  To use over and over again?  The second time round, Bang is just, well, Boring.  You've seen the catwalk.  You've felt the heat of the lava.  You know now who dies, who survives, and who seems to die but turns out to be the other guy on Polyjuice.  What you need is a good story with depth.  Bang and its echoes will pass.  A good story well told will remain.  Think about it"

David seems distinctly unhappy with the turn the conversation is taking.  Life partnership?  What is she talking about?  To distract her he gets out the canon from the room with the red door and shows it to her.  "What do you think of this?"

"I'd put that back if I were you.  It carries a Thief's Curse.  But since you ask, Ron wrote it, Harry crossed it out."

"Yes, but why only Moaning Myrtle's name?"

She shrugs. "Why should Harry bother?  He doesn't like the mention of Myrtle - he knows it's a bit near the bone.  She can go through walls - who knows if she might read it secretly?  But it's only a graffito by Ron.  It's no big deal. Nobody, surely" - another withering look - "is going to try to *analyse* this, are they?  Give me a break."

David decides not to press the point.  But he does want to know this: "Doesn't the fact that it's crossed out undermine our conception of canon?  Are the words 'Moaning Myrtle' canon, or not?"

She sighs  "Give me strength!  Save me from these anal lardbottoms!  Look, when Hagrid says all dark wizards come from Slytherin, that's canon, right?  But do we believe him?  No, we weigh it up.  It's canon that Hagrid *said* that, and we can't dispute that.  But whether what he said is a true statement about the Potterverse, is debatable until kingdom come, or OOP, whichever is sooner, and I'm not taking bets.  Same with this.  It's canon that Harry's schoolbook contains these words *and* the crossing out.  But what they *mean* - that's interpretation.  You can debate that forever."

David thinks that this last rather contradicts her earlier comment about people trying to analyse it, but decides that now might not be a good time to mention it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1) See message 38392:

> if Hogwarts were operating in the Real World, you could certainly argue that Dumbledore's little drama was in poor taste at best, a tactical error at worst.  But as part of the Potterverse?  It's only a mistake if it was written that way.

> --Dicentra, tugging down her sleeves and going to wash the spit off her hands

(2) Translator's note: A rubber in British English is known as an eraser in the United States.  Sometime, somebody should explain what banging means in British English, too.

(3) Faith's backstory can be found at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin%20Files/hypotheticalley.htm#faith


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